Free How Not To Date a Bear by Stephanie Burke Page A

Velma who was forced to get laser hair removal or risk being captured for a sideshow as the great dog-girl --
    “Great --” Declan’s deep voice broke into her line of thought, thankfully. “-- means that your clan can be considered royalty, the source strain of all the shifter blood on the planet.”
    “The source…” Her eyes widened at that. “I am related --”
    “To every Grizzly shifter that ever was.” Declan sighed. “Factions break off from the main branch, but none are as powerful as the members of the Great Bear shifter clans.”
    “But -- but I can’t shift!” She was growing angry and nervous all over again. These people were coming into her home and trying to change her way of life and her view of herself. It was unnerving, to say the least.
    “Doesn’t matter,” Declan pointed out. “Blood of the Great Clan, direct blood of a Great Clan, affords you a lot of power, Gillian.”
    “I don’t want power,” she snapped, rising to her feet. “And you never said anything about being part of a Great Clan. Theo said you were a Great Polar!” she accused.
    “I didn’t think it mattered.” He sat back and stared at her, his green eyes glinting like jewels. “And now I know why I can’t hurt you. Anyone else would have been buried out in the woods by now.”
    “Declan! Now is not the time to joke!”
    “I am not joking,” he grumbled, smiling, showing how his sharp teeth had replaced the even white ones she was used to seeing in his pretty smile. “If you were anyone else, the penalty would be death for having the audacity to shear a bear.”
    She gulped and looked over at Theo, and found him nodding. “He is royalty, after all,” he pointed out. “And what you have done is what we used to do in the old days to brand cowards.”
    Gillian gulped and slowly stood back from the table, her eyes on Declan. She didn’t know him at all.
    “I --”
    “I am not a toy, Gillian,” Declan ground out, also rising. “I am not one of the romantic heroes that Hollywood creates or writers extol the virtues of. I am a Great Polar Bear, not a human being. I am an animal in human guise. I am dangerous, and I led what you would call a renegade branch of my clan here to get away from the fucking war that helped lead to the exposure of shifters.”
    She took a step away.
    “And now that I reflect upon a few things, like my releasing control of my shift to allow my fur to be exposed and sleeping beside you so deeply while you shaved me, like how I let you order me around, like how I haven’t hurt you for the dishonor you visited upon my person with your razor --” He paused, a rueful looking smile crossing his lips as he shook his head. “I have come to the one conclusion that fits. You are indeed my mate. I have mated with a Great Grizzly right before I am to go out and convince the Brown Bears that I am not in collusion with the Grizzlies that live here.”
    The last thing Gillian heard before she raced out of the room was Theo’s sardonic voice. “I’d say we are pretty fucked, Boss.”
    * * *
    Gillian needed some time to clear her head. She needed that time in the shower, the best place to do deep thinking, by her reckoning, anyway. So now she stood under the hard, beating water thinking about all that had happened to her.
    “Damn my stupid hair kink,” she sniffed, trying not to cry.
    But things had gotten complicated real fast. How was she to know that she was a bear? She had no idea why she’d shaved her man. She had no idea he was a bear bear and not just a regular muscle bear down for a good fuck and maybe future friendships. Who knew what could result when you were sexually compatible?
    Oh, yeah, she reminded herself. You find yourself with a bear shifter -- a royal bear shifter -- and a new family history. And let’s not forget about a war at your doorstep, she thought darkly.
    “And what does being a mate mean anyway?”
    “It means --” She squeaked as the shower door opened and a